Available to customers in Amazon's three largest markets (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany), Amazon Coins can be used to buy apps and in-app purchases through the Amazon Appstore on these mobile devices.

The Seattle-headquartered corporation first unveiled its virtual currency scheme one year ago for deployment and payment on the Kindle Fire, with a soft launch in the United States shortly thereafter.

Amazon doled out tens of millions of dollars of free Amazon Coins to entice developers to both the currency as well as the Appstore, which is a big puzzle piece in the company's plan for monetizing the Kindle Fire device and digital content sold through it.

In regards to Coins, Appstore developers will continue to earn their standard revenue cut of 70 percent when customers make purchases using Amazon Coins.

Thus, this expanded support for Coins is more about providing flexibility and options for the customer while maintaining the status quo for everyone behind the scenes.

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive based in San Francisco, covering business and enterprise technology for ZDNet, CNET and SmartPlanet.
She has previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish Americ...
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